Learn How to Lucid Dream as a Tool for Self-Discovery

If you’ve ever wished you had the power to control your dreams, a process called lucid dreaming, you’ve now got a good reason to try—not that it wouldn’t be nice to be able to put on some clothes the next time you find yourself unexpectedly naked while you’re making an important presentation. Researchers have found that lucid dreamers have greater psychological resilience and attentional focus, as well as higher levels of activity in an area of the brain that indicates self-awareness.Lucid dreaming is “the experience of being aware that one is, in fact, dreaming,” says Kendle Hassinger, a dream expert and psychotherapist at the Emory Clinic in Atlanta. Achieving that state can lead to actually being able to control what happens next in the dream.Most dreaming takes place during the rapid eye movement, or REM, phase of sleep, a period when the parts of the brain that control rational thought and action become dormant—“which is why dreams seem so bizarre,” says Lauri Loewenberg, the author of Dream on It. After each cycle of dreaming throughout the night, the rational parts of the brain reactivate, which …